Learn how to use literature and informational texts related to sports as an alternative or a supplement to a canon-centric English classroom. This practical book promotes an instructional approach that honors students' knowledge of, interests in, and experiences with sports culture to advance literacy learning. Informed by his own experiences in high school classrooms, the author documents the distinct methods employed by four secondary English teachers in rural, urban, and suburban schools. Each narrative features the voices of teachers and students and details a range of activities that readers can adapt for their unique contexts. Whether teaching traditional English courses or those focused on the study of sports literature, teachers can use this book to tap into students' sporting interests and foster critical readings of sports culture as a mirror to our greater society. Book Features: Adaptable methods for using sports-related content to foster the six language arts: reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing, and visually representing. Actionable ideas for going beyond sports fandom and, instead, reading sports culture through a critical lens. Implications for incorporating sports culture into the English curriculum, whether teaching traditional courses or a stand-alone sports literature class. Answers to frequently asked questions that can support teachers as they bring sports culture to the English classroom.

Grounded in solid theory with new field-tested classroom activities, the fourth edition of Critical Encounters in Secondary English continues to help teachers integrate the lenses of contemporary literary theory into practices that have always defined good pedagogy. The most significant change for this edition is the addition of Critical Race Theory (CRT) as an analytical lens. CRT offers teachers fresh opportunities for interdisciplinary planning and teaching, as it lends itself to lessons that encompass a variety of disciplines such as history, sociology, psychology, and science. As with the previous edition, each chapter concludes with a list of suggested nonfiction pieces that work well for the particular lens under discussion. This popular text provides a comprehensive approach to incorporating nonfiction and informational texts into the literature classroom with new and revised classroom activities appropriate for today’s students. Book Features: Helps both pre- and inservice ELA teachers introduce contemporary literary theory into their classrooms.Offers lucid and accessible explications of contemporary literary theory.Provides dozens of innovative and field-tested classroom activities.Tackles the thorny issue of Critical Race Theory in helpful and practical ways. Praise for the Third Edition “What a smart and useful book! It provides teachers with a wealth of knowledge and material to help their students develop critical perspective and suppleness of thought.” —Mike Rose, University of California, Los Angeles “This Third Edition proves that Appleman still has her hand on the pulse of the rapidly changing landscape of education.” —Ernest Morrell, Teachers College, Columbia University “This new edition of Deborah Appleman’s now classic book demonstrates even more dramatically than previously how the critical theories she so skillfully teaches serve not only as lenses for the reading of literature, but as tools for discovering, interrogating, and challenging injustice, hypocrisy, and the hidden power relations that students are likely to encounter.” —Sheridan Blau, Teachers College, Columbia University

"The principles of freedom dreaming and abolitionist teaching are used to enact arts-infused writing pedagogies across a multitude of settings. Includes vignettes, mixed media artwork, and lesson plans"--

"Replete with classroom examples, this book demonstrates that young children (pre-K-6) are capable of learning about climate change; that climate change and social justice are inextricable from each other; and that literacy instruction is well-suited to this work. The authors take an emotionally affirming stance and examine the potential of incorporating arts-based methods"--

"This resource offers six effective teaching stances or "poses" that teachers can use to meet the needs of all students in today's challenging sociopolitical climate"--

This book introduces the Cycle of Responsibility (COR) model--the next step in the evolution of the Gradual Release of Responsibility model, which has been a conceptual mainstay of literacy education for decades. This new model shifts the current linear model to a cyclical process of multifaceted interactions that better reflect the complexities of early literacy, and with an emphasis on constructing knowledge together in the context of vibrant learning communities. Focused on reading, writing, and word study in the primary grades, the COR is put into motion through five key motivators: challenge, creativity, collaboration, choice, and independence. Vignettes demonstrate how to enact COR in classroom contexts. This practical resource is based on the authors' shared research and teaching experiences in employing the COR to empower children as literacy learners and teachers as agents of impactful instruction. Book Features: Presents the Cycle of Responsibility model--a new, field-tested teaching and learning model. Moves away from linear task completion to a cyclical collaborative process that reflects the energetic, complex, and creative world of classrooms. Provides a teacher-centric approach that emphasizes shared construction of knowledge and the forces that motivate young learners. Includes vignettes from the author's first-grade classroom to illustrate ideas in practice, as well as a chapter on teacher professional learning.

"Black African immigrant youth and young adults from countries south of the Sahara, among the most rapidly growing immigrant groups in the US given immigration, resettlement, and asylum programs, have long demonstrated varied racial, ethnic, gendered, cultural, linguistic, religious, and transnational identities in their diverse schooling and education practices. Moreover, African immigrant youth enacting complex, embodied practices within and across varied schooling and educational contexts, and at the interplay of language, literacy, and civic learning and action taking, complicate urgent questions of which students may engage civically in schools and communities, and how they may do so. Thus, transformative education research to support diverse schooling, education, and civic engagement experiences for African immigrant and refugee students will increasingly depend on enacting generative research frameworks, teaching approaches, and innovative methodologies. Such research and teaching hold possibilities for assisting and preparing researchers, teacher educators, teachers, and community-based educators to identify key schooling, education and civic engagement practices associated with student's varied identities, and / or taking up research approaches and learning contexts that affirm and extend the identified practices"--

"The book is for preservice secondary teachers across all content areas and for beginning teachers who may not yet have much experience working in secondary classrooms. Connected to adolescent literacy, the authors encourage a "widened lens" approach that considers varied perspectives and research findings when engaging in various and often competing initiatives, issues, pedagogies, and strategies"--

Differences in performance between students of poverty and more advantaged students are reflective of an opportunity gap, as opposed to a gap in student ability. This book argues that significant attention must be given to eliminating the barriers that produce educational inequities in student achievement. Walker-Dalhouse and Risko focus on disparities in literacy achievement that might be attributed to color-blind practices, deficit mindsets, low expectations, or context-neutral practices. Situating literacy learning within a comprehensive view of literacy development, they provide a set of instructional practices that will best support students living in poverty. Specifically, vignettes from kindergarten through middle school classrooms are used to demonstrate practices that address critical areas of the reading process; are responsive to students’ racial, ethnic, cultural, gender, and linguistic histories and assets; attend to students’ strengths and needs; and go beyond the impact of short-term testing to support optimal and sustainable learning. Educators and school leaders can use this resource to transform schools into nurturing and vibrant communities that are committed to change, equity, and diversity. Book Features: Provides recommendations and detailed guidance for enacting literacy instruction that will close opportunity gaps for students living in poverty.Includes vignettes from leading literacy educators and researchers that demonstrate high-quality literacy instruction implemented in K–8 classrooms.Presents instruction that is responsive to differences and honors the languages, literacies, and cultural resources that students bring to their learning.Offers specific recommendations and practices that can guide advocacy for change. “The authors correct the deficit misperceptions by showing how students experiencing poverty are the targets, not the causes, of educational disparities. . . . What a different world schools would be if we each embraced these lessons.” —From the Afterword by Paul C. Gorski, founder, Equity Literacy Institute

What do we mean when we say that a text is relevant to a young person or to a group of young people? And how might a reimagining of relevance, shaped through the voices of young men of color, enhance literacy teaching and learning? Based on case studies of six young Black, Latino, and South Asian men and their reading experiences, this book reconceptualizes the term relevance as it applies to and is applied within literacy education (middle school through college). The author reveals how four dimensions of relevance—Identity, Spatiality, Temporality, and Ideology—can guide educators in supporting the reading and meaning-making experiences of students in ways that honor the complexities of their lives and enhance their criticality. Sciurba frames relevance from a student-centered perspective as conditions that are practically, socially, and/or conceptually applicable to one’s life. Readers can use this book to disrupt problematic enactments of relevance in literacy spaces that are rooted in assumptions about who young people are, culturally or otherwise, as well as how they think and maneuver through their complex worlds. Book Features: Provides a nuanced understanding of relevance in literacy education in order to successfully enact culturally relevant pedagogy.Draws on scholarly literature from a broad range of fields, including sociology, cultural studies, literary studies, and physical science studies. Showcases what a nondeficit approach to working with Black, Latino, South Asian, and other young people of color can look like in educational contexts.Examines data from longitudinal qualitative studies with six students and young men of color that took place across 10 years beginning in a New York City middle school.